Guatemala: The Human-Rights Hoax

by Adam Jones (1989)

[Published in Latin America Connexions,
4:1 (1989).]

An extraordinary - or perhaps all
too ordinary - piece of correspondence turned up in the Connexions
mailbox a few weeks ago.

It was forwarded to us by a Vancouver
reader, Andrew Larcombe. Andrew had written to Minister of External Affairs
Joe Clark concerning recent human rights abuses in Guatemala, specifically
the death-squad assault on student leaders at the University of San Carlos
in Guatemala City. Andrew told us he had been interested in finding out
if the Canadian government was aware of the situation; he also requested
that the Department of External Affairs take appropriate action.

His letter was answered by D.G. (Gordon)
Longmuir, Director of the Caribbean and Central America Relations Division
of the DEA.

"The government of Canada shares
the concern of many Canadians with respect to the human rights situation
in Guatemala," Mr. Longmuir wrote, "and has raised this issue on numerous
occasions, both bilaterally, and in the appropriate multilateral forums.
Canada has consistently pressed the Guatemala Government to investigate
human rights abuses, and to bring guilty parties to justice."

So far, so good. But the letter continued
as follows (with emphasis added):

The Guatemalan Government
does not employ violence as an instrument of policy. However, the civilian
authorities clearly do not control those on the right or on the left
responsible for political violence. We share your disappointment at
the inability of civilian authorities to properly investigate political
violence, and bring guilty parties to justice. Nevertheless, it should
be noted that, within the political space available to it, which admittedly
is narrow, the Government of Guatemala has managed to improve respect for
human rights, especially in contrast with the situation at the beginning
of the decade.

Given the complexity of
the issues involved, and the fact that major human rights violations
are carried out by both sides to the conflict, and by individuals or
groups outside the Government of Guatemala's control, we continue to believe
that a negotiated settlement to the conflict in Guatemala is the only reasonable
prospect for a just peace. ... Canada will continue to urge the parties
toward mutual accommodation. The support Canada is giving to the peace
process in Central America will, we hope, contribute to the objectives
sought by all.

In order to place this astounding
document in the proper perspective, it's necessary to recap some recent
Guatemalan history.

On May 1, 1978, the Peasant Unity
Committee (CUC) was formed by highland peasants in response to the increasing
scale of evictions and seizure of communal lands in the Guatemalan countryside.
That same month, more than a hundred Guatemalan Indians protesting land
usurpations were massacred by army forces at the community of Panzós.

A military government was in charge
of Guatemala at the time, as it had been for nearly all the quarter-century
since the CIA engineered the overthrow of reformist President Jacobo Arbenz
in 1954. The military's response to peasant organizing was hysterical.
The country's elite depended on access to dirt-cheap highlands labour during
the harvest season, and over time, the military had penetrated the economy
to become the dominant sector of that national elite.

No less threatening to the status
quo was the wave of union and student organizing in the cities. And the
response of the military and associated security forces was no less savage.

Between 1978 and 1984, Guatemala
underwent one of the worst holocausts of the post-World War Two era. In
the countryside, the army confronted a variety of new guerrilla groups
which had sprung up in response to the systematic slaughter in, and destruction
of, highlands communities. Four hundred and forty villages were wiped off
the face of the earth in these years. Troops invaded communities and massacred,
tortured, and abducted at will. The cities lived under a similar reign
of terror.

One hundred thousand Guatemalans
are estimated to have died over these seven years, most in a manner whose
brutality defies description. Hundreds of thousands more fled to squalid
refugee camps inside Mexico, near the border of their homeland, where they
were subjected to regular Guatemalan Army incursions.

The terror worked - temporarily,
at least. Peasant organizations, labour unions, student groups were shattered.
But the violence provoked an inconvenient international outcry.

To recapture a measure of international
legitimacy - and the aid that went with it - the Guatemalan military permitted
the election and installation of a civilian president. Christian Democrat
Vinicio Cerezo was an ideal candidate. He had written a book praising the
army as a vital partner in any national development strategy. Cerezo took
office, though not true power, in January 1986. The outgoing military,
meanwhile, had covered its tracks by passing a blanket amnesty absolving
itself of any crimes committed during the holocaust.

Before the elections, Assistant Head
of State, General Rodolfo Lobos Zamora, had commented: "To the extent that
a civilian government enables us to obtain aid, we are pleased, but that
is not to say that the army will disappear." And of course, the army has
not disappeared. It still exercises complete control over rural Guatemala,
constituting what James Painter has called a "decentralized parallel government."
The main mechanisms of its rule are the "development poles" built up since
June 1984, wherein the army controls all levels of administration including
distribution of foreign aid, and the notorious army-run Civil Defense Patrols
that have press-ganged a million Guatemalans (essentially, every adult
Indian male in the country). Peasants who refuse to take part in these
supposed "self-defense" initiatives are liable to be summarily executed.

For a year or so following Cerezo's
inauguration, human rights abuses were naturally fewer in number than during
the holocaust years. The pattern here was similar to El Salvador: the army
and security forces had run out of victims, the population was utterly
traumatized, and so it was a propitious time for "free" elections to introduce
a civilian façade.

Now, as popular forces once again
gather steam, repression is spiralling. Death squads have reappeared in
force - five new ones in recent months - and army abuses are on the rise.
Miriam Palacios, a Guatemalan living in exile who is B.C. Coordinator of
the Latin America program at OXFAM, told Connexions that "the massacres
are continuing, people by the hundreds are being killed. Nothing has changed
at all, at all, at all ..."

How does the letter from the Department
of External Affairs square with this record?

According to Mr. Longmuir, a certain
symmetry can be established between "those on the right or on the left
responsible for political violence." "Major human rights violations" are
perpetrated by "both sides to the conflict." Meanwhile, the Cerezo government
"has managed to improve respect for human rights."

Assuming that "those on the right"
comprise the army, security forces, and off-duty death-squads, and "those
on the left" are the remaining guerrilla forces (that is, highlands peasants
united under the banner of the Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity,
URNG) along with peasant organizations, labour unions and so on, this attempt
at symmetry is frankly appalling.

In the course of researching a book-length
project on the history of the Guatemalan conflict, I had come across no
mention of confirmed large-scale human rights abuses by "the forces of
the left." Comparing the behaviour of "the right" and "the left" in Guatemala
struck me as akin to comparing Nazi crimes in Occupied France with abuses
by the French Resistance - except that the Resistance was responsible for
far more serious violations (including massive summary executions in liberated
territory) than the Guatemalan left has ever been.

Was I missing something? I telephoned
Mr. Longmuir in Ottawa to find out.

Mr. Longmuir said he had not meant
to imply by his letter that there was an "exact equivalence" between the
actions of the URNG, along with other leftist forces, and those of "the
right." Rather, the URNG's abuses were "qualitatively if not quantitatively"
similar to those of the army, security forces, and death-squads.

"There is no doubt that factions
of the URNG use terror," Mr. Longmuir told Connexions. "The situation
is certainly not parallel to El Salvador, where you have a much larger
and more powerful guerrilla movement that uses terror on a much greater
scale. But what we're doing is reacting against a one-sided interpretation"
that lays the blame for all human rights abuses at the door of the Guatemalan
right wing, he added.

What were External Affairs' sources
for these allegations of "qualitative" symmetry? "We get information from
all sides, including information on the behaviour of the URNG," Mr. Longmuir
said. He added that the reports of human rights organizations, including
Amnesty International and Americas Watch, were carefully consulted. In
addition, External Affairs received regular reports from Canada's chargé
d'affaires in Guatemala, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) based in-country,
and Guatemalan human rights groups both official and unofficial. An officer
back in Ottawa deals with Guatemala "on a daily basis," Mr. Longmuir said.

How far does information compiled
by the most highly-respected of the international human rights organizations,
Amnesty International, go toward substantiating Mr. Longmuir's allegations?

Amnesty's most extensive treatment
of the Guatemalan human rights situation is Guatemala: The Human Rights
Record, published in 1987. In nearly 200 pages of text, the question
of guerrilla abuses is mentioned once.

"On a number of occasions Indian
villagers did appear at government-organized press conferences or on television
to tell of guerrilla responsibility for large-scale killings," Amnesty
wrote. "However, in no case known to AI has an Indian peasant who succeeded
in reaching comparative safety abroad supported claims that the guerrillas
were responsible for massive extrajudicial executions. On the contrary,
most declared that the atrocities they had witnessed were the work of the
army." (Emphasis added here and for all subsequent quotes.)

Amnesty noted that many reports had
been received of army forces committing atrocities while dressed in guerrilla-style
garb. "Again and again, testimonies stated that the army could be readily
distinguished from the guerrillas, even when in disguise, by the type of
equipment and arms they had."

The scope of this major work covers
the period from the late-1970s onward in Guatemala. The analysis quoted
here exhausts Amnesty's coverage of abuses by "the left". In marked
contrast to the massively-documented campaign of slaughter, torture, and
"disappearances" by the army and state death squads, "leftist abuses" remain,
at best highly circumstantial and ambiguous - if they even exist on a measurable
scale.

The Amnesty Report for 1988 devoted
three pages to Guatemala. It noted that "suspected critics and opponents
of the government continued (in 1987) to be subjected to arbitrary seizure,
torture, 'disappearance' and extrajudicial execution. The victims included
trade unionists, peasants, students, teachers, and lay church workers.
Relatives attempting to discover the fate of their 'disappeared' family
members reported threats and harassment. The abuses were reportedly carried
out by police and military personnel acting in uniform or, most often,
in plain clothes in the guise of 'death squads'." The report made no
mention of any abuses by the guerrillas or other "leftist" forces
and organizations. (This contrasts with the section in the report on El
Salvador, which notes the FMLN rebel practice of laying landmines that
have caused civilian casualties. It contrasts, as well, with the section
on Nicaragua, where large-scale human rights violations by anti-government
rebels are acknowledged.)

In June 1989, Amnesty released Guatemala:
Human Rights Violations under the Civilian Government, which outlined
the results of a July 1988 mission of inquiry sent to investigate reports
of an upsurge in rights abuses. Again, there was a single mention of alleged
abuses by "the left." "Opposition forces ... have themselves been accused
of killing suspected informers and government agents. The government has
also accused opposition forces of killing peasants in the countryside,
either in attacks on non-combatant civilians or in crossfire. ... In some
cases it has been impossible for AI or others to attribute responsibility
for apparently politically-motivated killings. However, study of the available
evidence and the pattern of abuses over a period of years has led AI to
conclude that the so-called 'death squads' are made up of regular police
and military personnel acting out of uniform but under orders [i.e.,
there are no "leftist" death squads], and that the vast majority of peasants
killed in the countryside have been non-combatant civilians extrajudicially
executed by the Guatemalan army."

The remainder of this lengthy report
is a vivid and sickening compendium of testimony and analysis concerning
army and death-squad - that is, "right-wing" - savagery. Note that the
source for many (in fact, most) of the allegations of "leftist abuses"
- the Guatemalan government - never seems to get around to actually investigating
any of the allegations. Equally inexplicably, it remains silent on the
subject of atrocities committed by the army and security forces ("the right"),
except to pretend that a network of unaffiliated right-wing death squads
exists. Amnesty lambastes "the unwillingness or inability of the Guatemalan
judiciary, police and official human rights bodies to conduct genuine investigations
into human rights violations and bring their perpetrators to justice."
This, it says, "calls into question the (Cerezo) government's stated commitment
to the rule of law," and bodes ill for a possible "return to the pattern
of gross human rights violations which occurred in Guatemala in the past."

Also in June, Amnesty released an
update on events in Guatemala since the mission of inquiry completed its
work. It made no reference to any confirmed guerrilla abuses,
while reciting the usual litany of state-directed murders, torture, and
"disappearances." The update did, though, state the following: "A number
of cases are ... described where attribution of the abuse in question has
been a subject of dispute in Guatemala, but where the government appears
to have made no genuine efforts to clarify the facts of the case and bring
the perpetrators to justice."

This is apparently a reference to
the massacre of 22 peasants at the village of El Aguacate in late November
of 1988. In his conversation with Connexions, Mr. Longmuir had cited
Aguacate as an "extremely suspicious" incident, and said that "the logic
of the actions seems to suggest that ORPA (one of the guerrilla factions)"
was behind the massacre. ("Of course," Mr. Longmuir added, "evidence is
extremely difficult to obtain on abuses by either side" - which fails to
explain how Amnesty International manages to fill regular reports with
massively-documented accounts of abuses by "the right.")

The Aguacate incident became a cause
célèbre. True to form, the Guatemalan Embassy in Washington
arranged a press conference with two alleged eyewitnesses to the attack,
who charged the guerrillas with responsibility for the slaughter. The
New York Times weighed in with a story entitled, "Guatemala Massacre
Laid to Rebels." And President Cerezo stated he was "sure" the guerrillas
were responsible.

But an investigative team from CBC's
the fifth estate, which visited Guatemala earlier this year, found
devastating inconsistencies in the official story. Of the three "eyewitnesses"
put forward by the government, one said that "in no way" could he say the
perpetrators were guerrillas; in fact, "We've never seen guerrillas here."
Another "eyewitness" said he "didn't see" the killers (it also transpired
that he was a member of Guatemala's notorious Treasury Police and a longtime
army informer). The third "eyewitness" told the CBC that "I can't say if
it was a guerrilla or not ... I've never seen one in my life."

the fifth estate discovered
that two days before the bodies of the 22 male peasants were found - but
shortly after the peasants had disappeared - some of the victims' wives
had received calls from a nearby army base, telling them their husbands
were alive and in army detention. The CBC journalists also spoke privately
with several relatives of the murdered peasants who said they knew of eyewitnesses
to the scene who had seen the peasants bound and gagged under army guard
shortly before their bodies were found. One relative said: "There are witnesses
but they won't speak. Their lives are at stake ... we all know it was the
army (that did it)." Indeed, the modus operandi of the killings squares
exactly with familiar army practice. The bodies were found trussed up,
showing signs of torture, after the men had refused to join the army's
local Civil Defense Patrol. The patrol, the villagers said, was unnecessary
- because guerrillas had never been seen in the area.

All in all, El Aguacate is certainly
an "extremely suspicious" incident, as Mr. Longmuir has it - but not for
the reasons he suggests. Again, there is an obvious question to be asked.
Why, given that a genuine guerrilla massacre would be an unique publicity
coup for the government and armed forces, has no official investigation
been launched? Here, too, a familiar modus operandi seems to be visible.
The Cerezo government, aware that any serious investigation would turn
up signs of army responsibility, backs off, while milking the incident
for whatever propaganda value it can (ably assisted in this by The New
York Times).

In his letter to Andrew Larcombe,
Mr. Longmuir referred to Canada's "disappointment at the inability of civilian
authorities to properly investigate political violence, and bring guilty
parties to justice." If the abuses are in fact being committed by both
sides, this "inability" seems hard to account for. When it comes to looking
into the ongoing atrocities committed by the army and death squads, of
course, the threat posed to the government by officially-sponsored investigations
is crystal-clear. (Every so often an attempted coup, such as that of May
1988, is staged by a faction of the army to remind Cerezo and his administration
just who's in charge.) But no such intimidation comes from "the left";
the government could only benefit by investigations that substantiated
the allegations of "leftist abuses." The total absence of such
investigations seems an eloquent indicator of the absence or near-absence
of those abuses. In its way, it is as suggestive as the extremely fleeting
and skeptical treatment given the allegations of "leftist abuses" in the
Amnesty International literature.

The most recent Amnesty "Urgent Action"
on Guatemala (July 1989) includes a succinct section of "background information"
on the Guatemalan conflict. True to form, it mentions "threats, harassment,
'disappearances' and extrajudicial executions carried out by official police
and military forces, acting both in uniform and in plain clothes in the
guise of the so-called 'death squads'." It makes no mention of any
abuses by the guerrillas or others on "the left." Amnesty International,
it should be stressed, enjoys an unparalleled reputation for scrupulous
accuracy and lack of bias in human rights reporting.

So what can we conclude from all
this?

If Mr. Longmuir's letter and his
subsequent comments are any indication, Canadian policy is operating under
a profound - and profoundly offensive - misperception of the situation
in Guatemala. Furthermore, given that all of the above evidence is a matter
of public record, the misperception would appear to be a wilful one.

The conclusion is hardly surprising,
given that Canadian foreign policy is basically a matter of committed fence-sitting
- especially when it comes to repressive regimes installed and sustained
by the United States.

As far as Guatemala is concerned,
president Vinicio Cerezo fulfills an important function by providing a
façade for the holders of true state power - the army and security-force
apparatus whose despotism is practically unchallenged and effectively undiminished.

This myth benefits the descendants
of the military clique originally installed in 1954, by shifting their
behaviour to the background. It benefits the United States, whose policy
in Central America (crucially assisted by Israel and other allies) has
moved smoothly from supporting and overseeing immense slaughter, to supporting
the advent of "fledgling democracies" wherever both the status quo and
a façade of civilian rule can be maintained.

It benefits fence-sitting governments
like Canada's - who can pay homage to surface "progress" as an excuse for
essential inaction; who can call for "mutual accommodation" between murderers
and their victims as the best road to peace.

It benefits North American citizens,
who may be lulled to pleasant sleep by the illusion that a gentle land
to our south, after some years of unspeakable nastiness, is back on track
under a friendly civilian leadership.

In fact, the only people this myth
does not benefit are Guatemalans and other Central Americans, whose
deaths and suffering it expedites.

The killings go on. Figures quoted
by Amnesty International indicate a minimum of 40 Guatemalans "extrajudicially
executed each month because of their political beliefs" (as of Summer 1988).
These figures represent "only a proportion" of the total, owing to the
difficulty of registering deaths and "disappearances" in outlying areas.

Underneath the statistics are real
people. "The fate of many of the (victims)," Amnesty reports, "has been
similar to that of a trade unionist kidnapped by heavily armed men in February
1988 and found dead weeks later with the body of a law student - their
hands had been cut off. Or a second-year student abducted in broad daylight
and found dead two days later on 18 November 1988; he appeared to have
been tortured, strangled, and shot - his body bore burn marks and his nose
and teeth were smashed. Or a peasant who had been helping to make his neighbours
aware of their rights and was shot dead in his home in June 1988."

No doubt, if one looked hard enough,
one could find official Canadian protests concerning a few of the specific
atrocities. It's difficult to believe that any of the perpetrators slept
less easily as a result of these protests - especially when the overall
Canadian rhetoric, and actual policy, is so endlessly forgiving.

In November 1987, the Canadian government
announced a renewal of bilateral aid to Guatemala (this was around the
time the Guatemalan Army was launching its brutal "final offensive" against
peasant populations in the highlands, killing many and uprooting thousands.)
The Guatemalan government had "managed to improve respect for human rights,"
in Mr. Longmuir's words, and all was well - or well enough. In April, the
Canadian government recommended a further $8.8 million in aid for microrealization
projects in the Western Highlands. According to OXFAM's Miriam Palacios,
there is "no question" that this aid will have to be funnelled through
the military administration in rural Guatemala.

OXFAM, Ms. Palacios said, has given
up trying to stop the aid, and is concentrating on ensuring as far as possible
that it gets where it is needed. Meanwhile, OXFAM is lobbying the Canadian
government to increase aid to Nicaragua, whose regime it considers significantly
more deserving.

A restructuring of Canadian aid along
the lines suggested by OXFAM would involve a restructuring of our basic
foreign policy perceptions and actions. Perhaps that, finally, is the lesson
of Mr. Longmuir's letter and the policy it articulates. The Canadian government's
perceptions are badly, perhaps wilfully, skewed. These misperceptions contaminate
our entire official perspective on, and dealings with, the outside world.
And for Guatemalans, the misperceptions and misrepresentations may mean
that an end to the shocking violence and social injustice in their land
is a little further off.